Dance: Flamenco Vivo Carlotta Santana at BAM Fisher

Flamenco is celebrated on-stage at BAM Fisher for the first time as FLAMENCO VIVO CARLOTA SANTANA presents ANGELES/ALMAS, the company's Spring 2015 NYC season, May 19-24 at Brooklyn Academy of Music's BAM Fisher Building, 321 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, New York.

Founded in 1983, FLAMENCO VIVO CARLOTA SANTANA is one of this country's longest-established flamenco companies, dedicated to promoting flamenco as a living, evolving art form. During its week-long BAM Fisher season, the company will present two programs featuring the world premieres of three works by contemporary Spanish dance artists, accompanied by live music.

The first world premiere is Angeles (Program A) choreographed by Ángel Muñoz. The New York Times praised Muñoz' previous Flamenco Vivo commission, A Solas (2012), as "impressive for its compositional finesse" (while describing Muñoz himself as "singing with his feet"). Angeles portrays angels in myth, music and motion; building off of an earlier solo piece selected for the Festival de Jerez and London Flamenco Festival, the new work features Muñoz with a cast of nine more dancers and musicians.

The second premiere work, by Enrique Vicent and Antonio López is Martinete-Seguiriya (both programs), named after the flamenco form and rhythm featured in the piece. Seguiriya is one of the oldest flamenco forms where the serious, almost tragic sound of the music gives the dancer a chance to express sorrowful feelings, while the martineterhythm said to derive from the workers in the forge, from the word martillo,meaning hammer. Vicent and López were commissioned as part of a new collaboration between Flamenco Vivo and Madrid's El Certamen de Coreografía de Danza Española y Flamenco, one of Spain's most prestigious dance competitions.

The third premiere is Ausencia (Program B): Guadalupe Torres, a two-time winner of the Madrid Certamen, reveals the soul of flamenco in a new solo work created for her US debut performances. The engagement also features other company repertory including A Solas (2012 - both programs) a work by Ángel Muñoz showcasing the soleá por bulerías style; Mujeres (2009 - Program B only), choreographed by company associate artistic director Antonio Hidalgo, which offers a modern take on the traditional elements used by women in flamenco (the castanets, fans, shawls and dresses with bata de cola trains); and De Milonga (2003 - both programs), also by Hidalgo, which celebrates Latin American influences on flamenco.

Tickets for the company's First Night Fiesta on May 19, including premium seating and a post-performance reception with the artists, are $100-$250; for more information, call 212.736.4499 or visit www.flamenco-vivo.org. Flamenco Vivo will also offer a post-performance artist talk following the Thursday, May 21 show. Performance schedule:

Program A: Angeles, Martinete-Seguiriya, A Solas, De Milonga

Tuesday-Thursday, May 19-21 at 7:30pm

Program B: Ausencia, Martinete-Seguiriya, Mujeres, A Solas, De Milonga.

Friday-Saturday, May 22-23 at 7:30pm; Saturday-Sunday May 23-24 at 2:00pm

Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana's Spring 2015 season at BAM Fisher is made possible, in part, through support from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Rockefeller Brother Fund, the Harkness Foundation for Dance and the Consulate General of Spain. ANGELES/ALMAS is presented by Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana. BAM house and ticketing policies may not apply. All programs and casting subject to change.

Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana is one of America's premier Spanish dance companies, dedicated to the belief that the universal spirit of flamenco, a multicultural art form, has the power to build bridges between cultures. Founded in 1983, the company tours extensively across the country (appearing at some 71 venues in 26 states over the past 5 seasons), and serves New York audiences with an annual home season, supplemented by intensive arts education programs in a dozen or more public schools each year, and an annual "Flamenco in the Boros" tour which brings free flamenco performances to new audiences around the city.

Flamenco Vivo also operates the Center for Flamenco Arts, one of only two New York City dance studios dedicated to the specific requirements of flamenco, and produces the New York State Flamenco Certamen, a competition for pre-professional dance artists; the finals for the second annual edition of the Certamen will be staged at Lincoln Center's Bruno Walter Auditorium on the evening of Friday, October 9, 2015. In 1996 the Company established a second base of operations in North Carolina and since then has provided extensive arts education programming and community engagement performances across the state.